


i'll rise up (in spite of the ache)

by CharlotteDaBookworm



Series: Somnusson AU [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Family, Friendship, Galahdian Culture (Final Fantasy XV), Gen, Hope, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Panic Attacks, Temporary Character Death, Time Skips, for the events of past fics, searching for family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteDaBookworm/pseuds/CharlotteDaBookworm
Summary: the Prince still wanders across eos, searching for the ghost of his King, of his father, and it’s said that if you stand by a campfire in the dead of night you will be able to feel him as he searches for fire-bright hairhe searches now and he will always search, even when there are no people left on eos, even when the very world burns itself out, the Prince will searchor: 5 times Nyx and Ardyn almost find each other and one time they don't
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia & Nyx Ulric, Nyx Ulric & Original Character(s)
Series: Somnusson AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1225994
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	i'll rise up (in spite of the ache)

**Author's Note:**

> “Hope is a waking dream.” ― Aristotle

* * *

papa?

yes love?

can you tell me the story about the Hunter?

oh, my baby girl wants to hear about her grandpop’s travels?

no, papa. tell me about the **Hunter**

hmmmmm…

p a p a…

get back under the covers before mama tells us both off

now listen close

_a long time ago, before your grandpop was even born, there was a Hunter_

_and this Hunter, he was a part of a group of hunters; a whole_ family _of hunters and—_

like ollie! both of his mums are hunters and he wants to be too!

uh-huh, exactly like ollie. except _all_ of his family were hunters, not just his parents

_all_ of them?

uh-huh

that’s a lot of hunters

shhhhhhh, love

you’re going to spoil the story

where was I?

_oh yes_

_this Hunter was from a whole family of hunters and they all worked together_

_they took the hardest hunts because they were stronger as a team_

_and they always came back home_

_then, one day, this Hunter, he heard people speaking about an adamantoise_

the really scary giant turtles that eat people?

they don’t eat people

madga said they eat people

adamantoise eating people would be like us eating ants

you don’t want to eat ants, do you?

…

_the adamantoise, which did not eat people because eating ants is bad for you, was heading towards a nearby village_

_when the Hunter heard this, he rushed home to tell his clan so that they could stop it_

if it doesn’t eat people why do they want to stop it?

what happens if you step on an ant village?

ohhhh

_the clan, when they heard, they were scared;_

_even with so many hunters, even working together, even as strong as they were, fighting an adamantoise is almost impossible_

_but they were hunters_

_and they had people to protect_

_so they gathered together their swords and axes and bows, and they tucked their children into beds of allied clans with a kiss and a whispered goodbye, and they straightened their shoulders and they looked to the Hunter_

_he smiled at them_

_and then he led them into battle_

_the fight lasted for hours, for days, for weeks and each time they clashed with the adamantoise it would sweep away members of the clan with a swing of its tail_

_with each clash, with each metre they pushed the adamantoise back, the clan lost a member_

_until, finally, it was only the Hunter standing before the powerful daemon and his hands shook with exhaustion as he made one final blow_

_his swords shattered_

_the adamantoise fell_

_the Hunter toppled to the ground and woke weeks more later to find that it had been almost three months since the clan had left for the hunt_

_in that time, he learned, a neighbouring clan had attacked the allied clan that the children had been left with_

_they were all gone_

_the Hunter was alone, the last of his clan_

_or so he thought_

they didn’t _all_ die, did they, papa?

lie back down and listen, love

_the Hunter held the memorials, completely alone in the storms, when the Stormbringer came to him_

_the Hunter bowed and Ramuh laughed_

_in return for the lost clan_ _’s devotion, the Fulgurian told the Hunter to search for his uncle_

_and the Hunter was shocked_

_his uncle, a healer, had been missing since the battle_

_the Hunter had assumed that there was no body to find like so many others_

_he turned to Ramuh and begged him the truth_

_‘Does my uncle truly live?’ he pleaded_

_The Stormsender smiled_ _‘you need only search for him’ he promised_

and he did

and he did

_the Hunter left as soon as the clouds cleared; determined to search for the last of his clan_

_for the last of his kin_

_and search he did: for weeks, for months, for years, the Hunter searched and he never gave up hope_

_Ramuh himself had told the Hunter to search for his Uncle_

_so the Hunter searched_

_he searched and he searched and he searched and he helped people along the way, returning years later to find that children he had saved had grown and long since had children of their own_

_the Hunter_ _’s beard had not greyed, his hands did not shake with age, his back did not bow_

_he searched_

_and he still searches today in the hopes that one day he_ _’ll be reunited with his family_

will he ever find him, papa?

of course, he will, baby girl

_he has hope, after all_

* * *

“Are you certain about this, cousin?”

Nyx turns to look at him, taking in broad shoulders and steady hands and the fiercely kind look in Ren’s eyes. He knows that if he says no, if he gives any indication that this unsettles him (and it _does_ , he’s more terrified then he’s been in years at the prospect of going back to that place), the other man won’t judge him. He will probably even offer to this in Nyx’s stead.

He calls him cousin and he _means it_ and suddenly Nyx has never been prouder of the man that Ren Ostium has grown into.

It makes him smile over the feeling of his heart beating itself out of his chest. “Yes, cousin. I’m certain.”

If nothing else, returning to that place will help him close the circle on his past. If nothing else, it might help him sleep more soundly at night.

If nothing else… but flames above, Nyx hopes that it will be something more. He hopes that his Nana is right, he hopes that it wasn’t just a dream, he hopes that this trip _matters_.

He takes an unsteady breath.

Ren claps him on the shoulder, “come then, cousin. Perhaps our search will be over before it even truly begins.”

And Nyx-

If fa- _he_ had left his own son there surely Uncle would not have been left far behind. Surely he-

Nyx _hopes_.

Hope that carries him forward, that lifts his feet off of the ground over and over, that has his eyes catching on red leaves (redredredredred) instead of the rich earth that stains his shoes.

They walk and Ren speaks and Nyx does his best to focus, to _breathe_ through the dirt that seems to be crowding his lungs, and he hopes.

He hopes.

And that hope carries him to a stop before an unremarkable patch of dirt, one that is no more disturbed than any other but for the lightning fractures on the trees adjacent, and his heart pounds in his ears drowning out his cousin’s voice.

He hears screaming.

His lungs are heavy with dirt, his limbs unmoving at his side, and _his skin is too small stretched too tight too warm it should be cold it should be dead it should be bleeding this is wrongwrongwrongwrong **wron-**_

“Cousin.”

He flinches away from the hand on his shoulder, scrambling back (awayawayawayaway) before his thoughts slow enough to _think_.

Ren smiles at him and doesn’t move.

Nyx breathes.

He fixes his eyes on the ruins of a settlement that he can see in the distance and he _breathes_ , shaky hands clenching and unclenching around the hilt of his blades, and through it all Ren says nothing; letting his presence be an anchor. “This was not my best idea,” he says when his lungs stop feeling too big for his skin.

His friend lifts a shoulder. “Not your worst, either.”

“I was deep in my cups, you cannot blame my words for deserting me.”

“You are no poet, cousin.” Ren ignores his protests and turns, scanning the area. “If he were here, the Stormbringer would have brought you both home.”

Closing his eyes, Nyx breathes out the disappointment. “I know. This was just the beginning.”

“Where shall we go next, then?”

In the distance, he thinks he sees a flash of colour in the ruins, the rusting red of dried blood. He swallows, not needing his imagination to know what had happened to the families there. Perhaps it had been the daemons that grew more commonplace with each day, or perhaps it had been his- Somnus’ knights, or mayhap it was just ordinary war.

Either way, Nyx has had enough death for the day.

He turns away.

An arm is thrown around his shoulders, support and comfort together, and he lifts a still-leaden arm to wrap around Ren’s waist gratefully. “South,” Nyx decides.

“We follow the river.”

* * *

_He wakes again in the ruins of a settlement._

_He remembers-_

_He wakes, bound by chains._

_He remembers the nails-_

_He wakes to rust and red and steel._

_He remembers his_ brother-

_Darkness rises like a wave, pulling him under its current before he can find the breath to fight it. Rage rises to meet it, burning bright and_ red _in his veins._

_He lets go, bleeding tears of black._

_He does not notice the two figures in the distance who turn away just in time to save their pitiful lives._

* * *

Uncle isn’t here.

“Did you hear? King Helios is dead.”

He hasn’t been here, from what Nyx can tell. His uncle was never the best at hiding himself. If he had been here, someone would have talked about him.

A gasp. “No!”

Which is how he finds himself standing near what looked to be the towns two biggest gossips.

“Yes,” the person behind him tittered, far too enthusiastically. “They say it was the scourge.”

Nyx stills, ashamed of the part of himself that rises in vicious satisfaction at that. Helios was innocent of Somnus’ crimes and Nyx wouldn’t wish the scourge on anymore. Yet still, a part of him cannot help but think it karma.

Somnus’ perfect heir killed by what had caused him to murder his own kin and untold numbers of their- his own people.

“…his daughter is the next in line,” they continue saying behind him.

“She is just a child!”

He needs to leave.

Passing over the last of the hide in exchange for meat and a handful of fresh fruits, Nyx shoves himself away from the stall with just a grateful nod. As he does so, he glances around the market - gaze halting momentarily on red hair almost the right shade but on a child younger than the new King of Lucis - and shuffles his food into his pack.

He needs to get away from the reminders.

It isn’t hard to make his way out of the market and then out of the town proper, a town that was small enough that it may as well be a village, and the moment he hits the tree line Nyx is running.

Nothing calms him quite like running through the trees does and these aren’t the trees of his home; the trunks are too thin, too short, and the canopy not dense enough to be Galahd, but it works all the same.

He runs and he breathes and he doesn’t let himself think.

He runs and still he finds himself looking for _red_ and _white_ and **_gold_**.

(He never stops, these days)

Everywhere he goes, he looks.

(One day, he’ll find. Nyx has to believe that)

He stumbles to a stop in a small clearing, his chest burning in the best of ways, and he lets himself collapse - just for a moment. Lets shaky legs rest and his mind calm in the quiet songs of a forest.

It’s dark.

~~His brother is dead.~~

He can see the stars through the leaves.

~~Was he even his brother?~~

A bird chirps quietly to his left.

~~Would father have killed him too?~~

Parchment rustles in his pack.

Nyx sits, reaching for the letter that he already knows by heart. Lets his fingers run over words that are more Sol (they’re calling it Lucian now) than anything else and remembers teaching a hyperactive child them by firelight.

He could stay here for the night.

The clearing is big enough to set up a decent camp, enough protection from the weather and the predators, and travelling at night is becoming more and more dangerous. It would be far easier to just set off in the morning.

But his eyes fall to the letter in his lap, to Ren’s words delivered to him almost a month past asking him to come to his child's naming ceremony.

He thinks of how he’d gotten distracted by his hunt, about how that ceremony would be in a handful of days and he knows that if he sleeps now, he won’t make it.

He stands, carefully tucking parchment back into his bag, and reorientates himself. If he runs, he can make it to the nearest port town by dawn and catch one of the first ships out to Galahd. It would mean taking a break from his search, but his uncle had loved- loves children. He _loves_ children. He’ll understand.

(He has to believe that)

If he runs, he can be home in time.

So, he runs.

Nyx has a niece to meet, after all.

* * *

**_Killkillkillkill_ **

****

_The voices in his head scream._

**_Hungerhungerhunger_ **

****

_He runs._

**_Tearthemapart_ **

_He can_ _’t be around people._

**_Destroythemall_ **

_He lands in a clearing and falls to his knees; the earth is slightly warm._

_The screams quiet for a moment and he can_ breathe _. He can think. He can feel the crawling, bleeding black inching through his mind, can taste sooty blood on his tongue._

_He breathes in freedom_

_He hears the sounds of someone moving quickly through the trees._

**_TEARTHEMAPARTKILLEATDESTROYKILLKILLRELEASEUS_ **

****

_The screams begin again._

_Ardyn screams with them._

* * *

“I’m searching for my uncle, you see. We were separated in an attack and I’m worried about him,” he says, smiling winningly for the twelfth time in the past week.

The priest of Bahamut smiles back at him, sadly. “I am sorry, but no one matching that description has passed through here in at least several years.”

Nyx deflates. “Are you certain?” He asks desperately, despite already knowing the man is.

“Yes,” he says, resting an apologetic hand on Nyx’s arm. “I would remember someone with that shade of red hair, or even someone with golden eyes. We do not get many of Sol descent passing through our village.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope that you find your uncle soon, son.”

He gives the man a grateful smile as he walks away but it’s weak, bending easily under the crushing disappointment that he feels. Years now, he’s been searching. Decades longer than he’d had with his uncle and yet he has nothing to show for it. Nothing but the fact that he’s beginning to memorise the ever-changing paths between villages and towns and city centres.

Back then- he’d thought that he’d leave Galahd and find his uncle within months, that his uncle would forgive him, that they’d return together, that they’d be happy.

But it’s been _decades_.

It’s been decades and Nyx should be worried that his uncle will not recognise him. He should be searching for an ageing man with white hair.

His uncle should be long dead.

Yet, when he asks the Old Man, he says that his uncle yet lives.

Yet, he remembers a steel-cold voice spitting that he would _share his uncle’s curse_.

Yet, when Nyx can bring himself to look upon his own reflection in a pool of water, he sees the same face that has stared back at him for more than fifty years now. He sees youthful features and dark hair and a teenage smile. He sees all of that and knows that, if it wasn’t for the way that he carries himself, if it wasn’t for the darkness in his eyes, people would see him as a boy. Barely a man.

Ren has grandchildren now who are the same age that he was when he first met the boy, all those years ago.

His friend - his cousin, his _clan_ \- is grey now. His face is lined with smile lines and wrinkles, his hands crooked with age, his back bowing under the weight of a life well-lived.

His kin is _old_ and Nyx looks at at him and he knows that he is cursed.

He is never-changing and the world is ever-changing and Nyx-

Nyx doesn’t know how to deal with that. So, he runs; he runs and he searches and he hunts and his visits home have been dragged out more and more because he cannot stand to go but each time it is harder and harder to leave and Ren is _dying_.

Not of disease, not of battle wounds, not of anything that Nyx - nephew to a healer, master in his own right - can fight. No, Ren is dying of _age_ and age is the one thing that does not touch him and he cannot bear to watch it.

So, he doesn’t.

He feels ancient, ancient and wrong, and a man who is old enough to be his grandson calling him _son_ does not help.

Nyx is so tired, now.

What if it takes decades more to find his uncle? How can he keep dealing with the hope and the disappointment for that long?

He closes his eyes against the thought of it.

“Hunter! Hunter Ostium! Hunter!”

He opens his eyes to see a child - who is still older than Nyx was when he was put to the cross - run towards him. “Call me Nyx, please.”

“You must come, quickly. It’s Ren- he’s taken ill. They’re saying that he won’t survive it this time!”

Nyx freezes.

Time slows.

He stares at the boy in front of him, heart beating a storm in his ears, and he swallows back the scream that wants to rise in his throat.

Time shatters back into place.

Without a second look at the boy, Nyx spins on his heel and _runs_ , shoving blindly past a hooded figure on his way to the docks; he has to make it.

He has so much that he still wants to tell Ren.

He has to hope that he’ll still have that chance.

(He won’t)

(Nyx falls to his knees beside the body of his oldest friend and he _screams_ )

* * *

_He shoves the voices down, walking forwards on shaky legs._

_He has but a handful of trinkets to trade, little wooden figures carved during his more lucid moments, but he needs more than his stolen cloak._

_A side effect of escaping death, or perhaps of the darkness that resides in his veins; he is far more susceptible to the cold now._

_So concentrated is he on dulling the voices, on taming the scourge, that he doesn_ _’t notice the boy charging past him until he’s pushed aside._

_The voices rise, urging him to **tearripkilldestroy** and he gasps._

_They scream._

_Ardyn turns on his heel and leaves the village._

* * *

It occurs to Nyx, far too late, that perhaps Uncle would have left the continent. That perhaps he may have fled to Aera’s kin like he had fled to Galahd.

Aera who had died in an ‘accident’ just weeks before they’d been put to the cross.

His almost aunt whose death had sent Uncle spiralling, which had provided the distraction necessary for Somnus to complete his plans.

Who Nyx had almost completely forgotten about, somehow. Until Ren’s wake, until he met his grandson’s wife with the startlingly bright hair common to the other continent and Nyx remembers.

It still takes him another century before he makes the realisation; until passing thought crystalises into _action_.

He’s on the first ship across continents in a week, finding himself in Ulwat less than a fortnight after that and then he walks right into the biggest crowd he has seen in decades. The streets are packed from stall to stall, the noise of it all like a roar, and he stops dead, eyebrows raised.

“What on Eos…”

“Ascension, kid.” The merchant at the stall he inadvertently stopped at says, taking a long glance at his dark braids and tan skin and giving him a welcoming smile.

Nyx stares at him. “Ascension?”

The merchant laughs. “First time in Ulwat?”

“That obvious?”

“Yes,” he says bluntly, still friendly, giving him a slight bow that Nyx automatically returns. “I’m Matthias.”

“Nyx- Nyx Ostium. Ascension?” He asks again.

“The new oracle is about to swear her vows; half the continent has come to watch.”

He blinks. “Oh.”

Matthias laughs again, resting a hip against his stall and leaning towards him. “Yes. What is it that brings you here, then, if not the ascension?”

“Family,” Nyx says with an easy shrug, stepping closer to the stall to stay out of the way of the fast-moving current of people. “I lost contact with my uncle when I was young and my aunt was from Ulwat, I was hoping to find him here.”

“Good luck,” his new friend says with a dramatic wince and a gesture to the crowds.

He grins before he can help it. “I know.”

“Well,” Matthias grins, blue eyes bright. “I’ll be here all week and I’ll help you any way I can.”

“Keep an eye out for a man with red hair?” He says, a little sheepish.

“Anything for you, _Nyx_.”

Heat rises to his face at the way Matthias purrs his name and Nyx lets his grin sharpen into a smirk. “Anything?”

“Oh, darling.” He picks up a single blue flower and reaches up to tuck it behind Nyx’s ear with a lingering touch of fingers against his cheek. “Come back and I’ll prove it to you.”

Nyx catches his fingers as they fall, brushing them against his lips before letting them fall. “When does the market close?”

“Nightfall,” Mattias responds, blown eyes barely hidden behind strands of spun gold.

“Nightfall,” Nyx agrees, smirk widening.

He steps back, into the throng of people heading towards this ascension, without once taking his gaze away from Matthias. He lets the throng guide him, knowing that if his uncle is in Ulwat then he’ll be headed to the same place that everyone else is.

Eventually, he finds himself standing beside an older woman who keeps up a running commentary for what looks like her young grandchildren; he does his best to give her some space despite all of the people standing nearly shoulder to shoulder and listens to her words in exchange.

From where he stands, he can barely see the platform where the Oracle (Oracle-to-be?) arrives.

She still makes him freeze.

It’s like looking into a scene out of his memories, one from centuries before, like looking up to find Aera staring down at him and Uncle from a balcony as they spar. Bright hair frames her face exactly like Aera’s did and Nyx can almost picture the exact shade of blue eyes that she would sport.

A man in front of him stumbles, falling to a knee and gasping for breath, and Nyx moves to help him up - griping him by the arm and pulling him back to his feet before the celebrating crowd made it impossible.

He jerks out of his grip, his loose pale hair falling into eyes bright with panic, and Nyx steps back with an apology on his lips.

The man turns, fleeing from the crowd.

Nyx closes his mouth.

He glances back at the Oracle who is saying something that Nyx cannot hear and he swallows back memories that he’d thought he’d forgotten. He looks away, to the cliff face nearby.

Higher ground would give him more of a chance to find his uncle. Red hair will stand out easily against a sea of pale colours.

It’s the smarter choice.

(It’ll let him breathe)

He can’t do anything from down here, anyway.

Besides, Nyx thinks with a small smile, he needs to look his best for when he sees Matthias again, not rumpled by the crowd.

* * *

_The oracle steps onto the stage and she-_

_She looks-_

_A e r a_

_His legs fail him, collapsing beneath his weight, and he is thankful. He_ _’s angry. He’s three centuries in the past watching the love of his life walk away unknowing that this is the last time he’ll see her._

A e r a

_Unknowing that his own brother will_ murder _her. Just like he will murder him, mere weeks later._

**_KilldestroyKILL_ **

****

_The voices, the scourge, screams. His illusion flickers._

ItsAeraItsAeraShesAera _AERA_

_A hand jerks him to his feet and he throws himself away, away from Somnus, away from the hands reaching to drag him to the cross, from the grasping claws of the daemons the dragon had abandoned him to-_

**_KILLKILLKILL_ **

****

**_K I L L T H E M A L L_ **

****

_He turns blindly from the man who had ~~helped him~~ tried to kill him and Ardyn _runs _._

* * *

Altissia is beautiful.

The city is new, only a few centuries old, but it is so different to the remnants of Sol from Nyx’s youth and the Galahd and Lucis of his present. It’s a symbol of what the future looks like and he loves it.

He could live decades in Altissia and still be discovering new things.

Nyx stays a year.

A wonderful year dancing from eatery to eatery, scouring the markets at the docks peddling goods from all over Eos, making friends and watching out for his Uncle and the _library_.

The Library of Altissia.

He’s never seen anything like it and he was raised with access to the surviving pieces from the library of Solheim. Room after room packed wall to wall with books, some so faded and older than Nyx himself, some so new that the ink has barely dried on parchment. He can and has spent days in there, reteaching himself the language of his childhood, devouring fables and histories alike.

It’s his favourite part of the city.

And it’s also what drew him there. Even in Galahd, they’d heard about the Library of Altissia and how it’s the greatest in the world and Nyx-

Uncle would love this.

He will.

Nyx does.

The library is a marvel and his uncle will definitely come to visit it, the man far more a scholar than he will ever be, but Nyx hasn’t seen him yet.

He checks, every day, when the ships come in. He searches each one of them for a man with red hair, asks every captain about a man with gold eyes and each time he learns nothing. No, he learns that no one has seen his uncle.

No one Nyx has asked has seen him.

Not one person in seven centuries has seen him and Nyx-

He can’t ask everyone, not even he has the time for that, but he’s starting to wonder if his Uncle is truly out there. He’d thought that, if anything, Altissia would draw him out of wherever he has been.

Obviously, Nyx is wrong.

He’s always wrong.

It’s been seven hundred years since the cross. Seven hundred years since he’d seen his uncle and in that time he’s buried so many friends, attended so many funerals, seen more of Eos than he’d ever imagined he would.

And what’s gotten him through it, what has kept him going, is _hope_.

The hope that _this time he_ _’ll find his uncle_ , that this is the last trip, that he’ll finally be able to stop searching. Yet every single time, he’s wrong.

He’s wrong and he’s always disappointed and it’s getting harder and harder each time.

It hurts more, each time.

The Old Man keeps his hope alive every time he visits, every time Nyx asks if his Uncle lives and Ramuh says **yes** , and some days he hates him for it.

He hates himself for it.

Nyx can’t even remember what his uncle looks like anymore. Not properly. He knows that he has red hair and golden eyes, he knows the exact shades of those. He knows he wore white. He knows they share cheekbones.

He doesn’t know the shape of his eyes or the point of his nose or the jut of his ears and every time he tries to draw them out the image looks _wrong_.

Nyx is searching for his uncle and he’s not even sure if he’ll recognise him.

And the moment that Nyx realises that, he realises that he needs to leave Altissia.

He needs to go home, just for a little while.

So, he says goodbye to his new friends and the beautiful library and he climbs aboard a ship headed to Galahd and he pays no mind to the whispers of yet another war by the sailors there.

So, he leaves and he doesn’t even glance at the ship that passes them by as they sail past the altar of the Tidemother.

He doesn’t notice the glint of red in the corner of his eye.

* * *

_He_ _’s heard wonderful things about the library at Altissia._

_Things that are almost enough to wish that he hadn_ _’t had to settle his affairs in the small village he’d settled it first._

_In the end, it takes him nearly a year before he can board a ship to visit the city._

_He doesn_ _’t care._

_Ardyn pays no mind to the ship that passes them on their way into the beautiful city, far too excited to see the library that he_ _’s heard such wondrous things about_

* * *

He should have paid more attention to those whispers of war.

Nyx regrets that he didn’t but wars come and go and he hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Now, he wishes he’d stayed in Altissia.

Instead, less than a decade later, the mainland is at war with itself. Lucis is trying to expand itself once again, the current King just as ambitious as the _Founder_ he is named after, and Leide is resisting.

They’re fighting back and Nyx is fighting with them because he’s seen enough wars, enough kings, to know that King Somnus II is not going to stop.

He won’t let Galahd be next.

So, he fights.

He fights and he fights and he fights, jumping from battlefield to war tent to healing rooms as fast as he can.

Nyx fights and he cannot die.

No, he cannot stay dead.

Nyx fights and he dies, more often then he’d like but less than he should, and each time he gasps awake from icy silence to skin that never quite _fits_.

He hates dying.

He’s also impaled, pinned to the ground by the sword of a Lucian smart enough to strike him from behind and skilled enough to follow through. A Lucian who is dead at his side, one of his knives buried in his throat.

His vision is already starting to darken, agony softening in the way that signals death is near, and Nyx knows he should move. He needs to move.

If he doesn’t move then he’ll revive with the sword still impaling him and Nyx never wants to get trapped in a cycle like that again.

He needs to remove it.

His arms are so heavy.

The next breath he takes is shaky and he drops his arm so so slowly.

_S N A P_

His eyes snap open, vision still black around the edges as he reaches for a blade to defend himself from whatever predator has decided he’ll make a good meal. He looks up.

Nyx’s eyes meet _red_.

**Red** and **gold**.

He relaxes; letting his body fall back to the ground, to the blood already cooling around him. “You’re _here_ ,” he murmurs. It’s been so long.

“I’m sorry,” he tells him. “I can’t find you. I’ve looked for so long, in so many places, but you’re never there.”

The figure stares back at him, down at him, and Nyx smiles at the figment of his imagination, at the fragment of a memory.

His vision goes a little fuzzier.

“I’m so sorry, uncle. I’ve failed you. I _keep_ failing you. And I miss you so much but I can’t find you and I’m _so sorry, I_ _’m sorry uncle please forgive I couldn’t stop him please believe me.”_

Nyx swallows back blood.

The hallucination doesn’t move. (It never does). But Nyx scans the hazy figure with eyes he has to force to stay open, determined to remember as many features as he can. (This time).

He can feel the pain fading a little more; his limbs like leaden weights, exhaustion pinning him to the ground like a cloak. He knows what this means. “I love you, uncle.” He gasps out, feeling his life slipping away from him yet again.

He has seconds.

Still, he tries to reach out. He tries to touch the image of his uncle, one last time; it’s been centuries, he isn’t sure he’ll ever see him again. (He’s surprised he still has enough memories of him to imagine).

His vision goes black.

Nyx dies, again.

The figure shatters.

* * *

there is no sadder way to start a story than ‘once upon a time’. once upon a time, everyone was happy. and then they weren’t. once upon a time they lived. and then they died. no other opening implies tragedy quite like this.

no happy story starts with the words ‘once upon a time’.

_once upon a time,_ there was a boy. a Prince. the heir to a throne that has long been forgotten.

and this boy, he was happy. he was loved. he was cared for and protected and loyal. above all else, he was loyal. loyal to his father, to his people, to his kingdom.

all looked forward to the day that he would ascend the throne because there was never any doubt that he would be a great king. like his father before him. this Prince was loved and he loved in return, easily, freely, happily.

he laughed with his people and smiled at his father’s shoulder and he _cared_.

everyone loved him.

but his father - the King - was a sickly man. smart and kind and generous, but physically weak.

as he grew, the Prince took on more and more of the King’s duties, allowing his father to rest in the hopes that he would grow better.

for a time, he did.

for the first time in years, the King stood tall and hale alongside his son; he laughed and smiled and spoke to his people, played with the children who gathered in the square, his fire-bright hair shining with health and his skin glowing with vigour.

father and son ruled together and they were happy.

_once upon a time,_ they were happy.

but happy stories do not start with the words ‘once upon a time’.

the King had a Cousin, you see. one but a handful of years older than the Prince. one who had been his heir before the Prince was born.

and this Cousin- he was strong, a lauded warrior, and he was handsome, with a smile that made people swoon, and he was loved perhaps not as much as the King and his Prince but loved all the same.

he was also ambitious.

when the King grew ill, yet again, the Cousin came to visit. to ‘ease the Prince’s burden’. the Cousin called the Prince ‘little brother’ and smiled at him with all the warmth in his heart and offered to take over some of the busy work so that the Prince could spend time on other things.

the Prince accepted, smiling back at his kin in relief.

all was well.

for a while.

then, weeks later, the King disappeared from his bed. there was no trace of him within the castle, no clues found within the town, and there were whispers of abduction on the wind. the Prince, harried and terrified, turned to his Cousin for help. ‘please,’ he begged the man who called him brother, ‘help me find my father’

the Cousin smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said easily.

he waited for the Prince to turn his back and then he slid a knife into it.

the Prince coughed, his lungs filling with blood, and with the last of his strength, he turned back to his Cousin.

‘you will find him in the next life, little brother. and I will enjoy my new throne,’ the new king said.

then he walked away, leaving the Prince crumpled upon the floor.

_once upon a time,_ they lived.

and then they died. murdered by one they trusted.

but that is not the end, no. the Prince, knife still in his back, ghastly trails of blood dripping down his face, stood. he couldn’t speak, every time he opened his mouth blood poured out, and he did not follow his Cousin.

instead, the Prince continued on his search.

he scoured the castle once more, with slow, dragging steps that left unseen bloody footprints in his wake. he wandered the streets of the town, causing chills in all those that he passed.

he searched for his King with the single-minded determination of the dead.

the Prince didn’t find him.

he searched and he searched and he searched, wandering across eos even as centuries passed him by, as the Cousin who murdered him died himself, even as all of his people and his kingdom faded away.

he searches even now, you know.

the Prince still wanders across eos, searching for the ghost of his King, of his father, and it’s said that if you stand by a campfire in the dead of night you will be able to feel him as he searches for fire-bright hair.

he searches now and he will always search, even when there are no people left on eos, even when the very world burns itself out, the Prince will search.

he’s doomed to search with no hope. caught in this half-death of wandering and searching

one day, as you stand on the precipice between life and death, you may even see him for yourself. the boy Prince in his bloody robes, staring down at you. still searching.

always searching

_(never finding)_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> yo
> 
> it's half past midnight. i finished this five minutes ago. it has had only the barest of readovers. i might come back and change things later but tbh right now i hate this fic a little. major chara death warning is there just in case cos nyx does technically die
> 
> if i'm missing tags tell me i'll add them when i've slept
> 
> it's definitely not my best work but merry christmas, happy late hanukkah, merry yule, have a great present getting day and please spend Halloween the redux inside and safe
> 
> fuck i need sleep bye


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